Lucia finished her account, and when she had done so, Mrs. Costello came
back to the sofa and sat down. She put her arm round her daughter, and
drawing her close to her, she said, "You are a good child, Lucia, for
you ask no questions, though you may well think your mother ought to
trust you. Be patient only a little longer, till I have thought all
over. Perhaps we shall be obliged to go away. I cannot tell."

"Away from Cacouna, mamma?"

"Away from Cacouna and from Canada. Away from all you love--can you bear
it?"

"Yes--with you;" but the first pang of parting came with those words.




CHAPTER VI.


"Away from all you love!" The words haunted Lucia after she lay down in
her little white bed that night. There, in the midst of every object
familiar to her through all her life, surrounded by the perfect
atmosphere of home, she repeated, with wondering trouble, the threat
that had come to her. When at last she slept, these words, and the pale
face of her mother bending over her as she closed her eyes, mixed
themselves with her dreams. At last, she fancied that a violent storm
had come on in the very noon of a brilliant summer day. She herself, her
mother, Percy and Maurice seemed to be standing on the river bank
watching how the sky darkened, and the water rose in great waves at